


Survival Means Using Bright Colors

by coolbreeze1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeze1/pseuds/coolbreeze1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An easy mission babysitting scientists as they explore a new facility turns dangerous when a swarm of Wraith show up, and Lorne must use all his skills to get his people out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival Means Using Bright Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my beta, everybetty!! This was written for the 2009 SGA Genficathon.

**PART I**

The silence was deafening.

It was a cliché, Evan knew, but he felt the truth of the statement as soon as he crossed the threshold of the door. There was something about experiencing it firsthand, of walking into a room that he knew had been filled just minutes before with gunfire, and hearing nothing. Nothing meant the voices had stopped with the guns—any sign of life had been stilled under the oppressive quiet. He walked into the vacuum and felt it squeeze him in a fist until he almost couldn’t breathe.

He hesitated a split second, long enough for Ronon to push past him, but then his training snapped into place. His feet and hands and eyes moved according to deeply ingrained instincts. He swept the barrel of his weapon across the room as he searched for any sign of movement. He was acutely aware of the bead of sweat dripping from his hair, down the skin behind his ear. His vest hung heavily from his shoulders, and one of his boots was tied tighter than the other and pinching at his ankle.

Power in the facility was sporadic, causing the lights embedded in the walls to flicker and dim, then pop back to full strength. They weren’t all white lights, either—some were blue, some orange, like the remnants of a long-ago alarm still winding down from its emergency. There was a hollow ringing in his head now, his imagination filling in for the alarm that felt like it should be there, screaming. He wanted to dig his fingers into his ears to clear them out, but he kept a tight grip on his P90.

There was no movement besides himself and Ronon. Evan took it all in in a split second, a single sweep of his eyes, but it took several more seconds for his brain to register what the images meant. The room was longer than it was wide with four support columns on each side pressed up against the walls. Some of the tables and consoles built into the floor were still in place; others were scattered in pieces across the room. Evan couldn’t have said why, but he had the impression that whatever had destroyed this room had happened long ago and not because of the disastrous events so far that day.

Bodies lay spread out across the room, and he felt a little like a detective walking into a crime scene. A horrific crime scene. He blinked and registered a Marine curled up on the floor about ten feet from him, unconscious or dead and facing the wall. Another Marine lay slumped against the column just three feet farther, the blood spatter against the wall above her dripping down toward where her body had eventually come to rest. The psychedelic flashing lights reflected in her eyes, and Evan could see both that she was positively dead and how she had died. There were at least two bullet holes in her chest, blood darkening the already black uniform and vest. _P90 bullet holes._

On the other side of the room, he saw the lighter uniforms of two scientists behind one of the upright consoles, also not moving. Zelenka had been with this group, he knew, but he couldn’t focus on that yet. Another Marine lay spread eagle on his face in the middle of the room, blood pooling beneath his chest and head. Evan couldn’t see his face—he was standing on the wrong side of the body—but the hands were white, the blood drained from his extremities.

A pair of boots was visible behind an overturned table, nothing else. They should have been unidentifiable, but with a rush, Evan knew to whom they belonged. _Sheppard._ He’d stopped three feet into the room as he’d scanned, feeling suddenly like he was intruding. Like he’d crossed a barrier he wasn’t supposed to. Teyla pushed past him toward those boots, calling out the colonel’s name, and Evan had to bite his lip to keep from yelling at her to come back.

Ronon had walked straight to the other side of the room to the far wall, and Evan forced himself to move forward. Two Wraith lay against the wall next to a second doorway, the dried husk of a body between them. A scientist, based on the uniform. Another Wraith lay scattered in the far right corner. At least he thought it was one Wraith. The creature’s body was literally scattered—ripped apart by a grenade blast if Evan was reading the scorch marks on the wall and floor correctly.

He walked closer to the Wraith, glancing at Teyla as he passed. He caught a glimpse of the colonel’s body, lying on its side, but his head and arms were lost to the shadows. Evan felt a sickening crunch in his stomach and he jerked his head away, focusing again on the Wraith. Ronon was standing over them, his face white and furious. Without a word, he unloaded his blaster into both bodies.

If they hadn’t been dead before, they definitely were now. Evan turned away, scrunching his nose at the stench of charred flesh that started to overtake the iron smell of blood. As he did so, he noticed a final body—another Marine slumped between a pillar and a square metal table just a few feet from the scattered Wraith, a P90 in his lap. One leg was curled up under the other, a hand limp at his side and a grenade pin just inches from his fingers.

So he had thrown the grenade, not the colonel or the Marine in the middle of the room. Evan stepped toward him, retrieving his dog tags. He was just slipping them into his vest pocket when he heard Teyla’s startled cry behind him.

“He is alive!”

McKay popped up from behind the console where Evan had seen the two scientists, and Ronon crossed the room in three giant steps, grabbing the overturned table and shoving it out of his way. Evan moved toward them, then wondered about the Marine lying in the middle of the floor and made his way to him. If Colonel Sheppard was still alive, maybe the others were too. Maybe this wasn’t the death trap he’d thought it had been.

“John? Can you hear me?”

“Come on, Sheppard.”

He ignored Teyla and Ronon’s voices as he knelt next to the spread-eagled Marine, but now he was on the right side to see the man’s face, and he was clearly dead. Briggs. His name had been Briggs, fresh off the Daedalus less than two weeks ago. And the one who’d thrown the grenade—Henley. He hadn’t recognized him until he’d turned away, and then the name had popped into his head with a memory of Henley telling a raunchy story at breakfast that morning that Evan had come in on too late to actually understand.

He glanced over at the Marine killed by P90 fire. Lieutenant Muller.

“Damn,” he muttered. _What the hell had happened here?_ He stayed on his knees next to Briggs, carefully not kneeling in the blood around the Marine’s body, and saw the round bullet hole of in the back of his vest. He’d been killed by one of their own weapons as well. He carefully slid the man’s dog tags off his head and wrapped the chain around the silver tabs before dropping them in his pocket with Henley’s. He glanced over at Teyla and Ronon on the ground next to the colonel, but he still couldn’t see Sheppard’s face.

“Teyla?” McKay called out. He was behind the console with the scientists, making Evan wonder why he hadn’t rushed over to Sheppard with his other teammates. Were the scientists dead? Or had they gotten lucky, tucked away in the corner of the room?

“He is unconscious,” she answered. Evan could hear Ronon murmuring, urging his friend back to the land of the living.

“McKay, what have you got?”

“Zelenka and Jin Hwangpo—I think Radek was hit with a Wraith stunner. Jin is conscious but she’s not exactly…aware and coherent.”

“Injured?” Evan asked straightening up.

“Besides the stunner hit, not that I can tell.”

Evan could hear McKay snapping his fingers, and a second later he glanced up at Evan and shrugged. Evan crossed the room without responding, bypassing Muller to squat next to the first Marine he’d seen. He reached a tentative hand out and sighed in relief at the warm skin against his fingers. A second later, he found the pulse point and a steady thrum beating against his fingertips.

“He’s alive,” he called out to no one in particular. “Ortiz,” he added a moment later as he tugged on the man’s shoulder and rolled him back far enough to see his face. There was a purple bruise on the Sergeant’s cheek, but otherwise he seemed okay. No bullet holes.

That left Sergeant Travis and Doctor Purcell. Evan glanced over at the dead husk between the Wraith. That had to be Purcell, but where was Travis? He was not in the room. Evan replayed the little Colonel Sheppard had yelled over the radio in the moments leading up to the silence. They’d been retreating through the hallways, trying to maneuver around the Wraith drones who’d suddenly poured into the facility they’d been exploring. They’d had almost no warning, but Teyla and her group had secured the east entrance easily, and Evan and his group had fought their way to her position with little resistance. It made him think that whatever entrance the Wraith were using, it had been near the rooms and hallways Sheppard and his group had been investigating. He could only assume—until he got an eyewitness confirmation—that the Wraith had taken out Travis.

He opened his mouth to say as much, when a resounding thunderclap sounded overhead, shaking the ceiling and sending a cascade of dust from minute cracks above him. He flinched, bringing an arm up to protect himself and knowing at the same time that if the ceiling came down on them, his arm wouldn’t do a whole hell of a lot of protecting. Half a mountain sat on top of them.

“What the hell was that?” McKay screeched, his own arms wrapped protectively around his head as he slowly stood up to peer over his console.

“ _Major Lorne_ ,” a voice rang out, and Evan flinched again.

He jerked a hand up to his ear to tap the radio ear piece. “Go ahead.”

“ _Target has been destroyed—a small cruiser, landed in a clearing about 500 yards from the facility, directly opposite the gate._ ”

“Roger that. Any readings of this place on the sensors yet?” His voice sounded odd—hollow, like he was hearing himself talk on the other end of a phone—but he shook it off and worked some moisture into his mouth.

“ _Negative, sir. We’ve got a flood of white hair heading toward the facility, but their blips disappear from the HUD as soon as they cross the threshold._ ”

“How many Wraith?”

“ _Twenty-five to thirty._ ”

Another voice piped up, and Evan recognized Sergeant Feltner’s gruff accent. “ _We’ve cleared out this side—all scientists and Marines besides Colonel Sheppard’s group accounted for and heading for the east exit_.”

The bubble that had enveloped Evan the moment he’d stepped into the room burst as the voice buzzed in and out of his radio. He felt the cold dread in his gut curl into heat, warmed by pulsing adrenaline.

Colonel Sheppard had been deeper in the complex and trapped, pinned down by Wraith on all sides and running out of ammo. Evan glanced around at the scene of death and destruction around him. Whatever had happened here, it hadn’t been the Wraith. He heard Sheppard’s voice again, almost hoarse from screaming. Something about Briggs. Something about standing down before he got them all killed.

Then gunshots. Then a muffled explosion that had echoed across the radio, bringing everyone to a sudden halt. The memory of the sound echoed in Evan’s head. His eyes swept the room again and landed on the scorch marks and dismembered Wraith parts. The grenade. That had to have been when the grenade went off, but Sheppard hadn’t answered their frantic radio calls after that. No one with him had—not Briggs, Henley, Muller, Ortiz, Zelenka.

Just dead silence.

“ _Major?_ ” Feltner’s voice sounded again in his ear, and Evan shook himself out of his thoughts.

“We’re at Colonel Sheppard’s position now. Get everyone into jumpers, then go stealth.”

“ _The colonel?_ ”

“We’ve got several injured. We’re heading back now.”

“ _We can make our way to you, sir_ —”

Evan cut him off. “Negative. Hold the exit until we can get there.”

“ _Yes, sir_.”

“Move to radio silence.”

The radio clicked twice, letting Evan know the order had been acknowledged. They hadn’t seen any Wraith—other than the dead ones in the room—on this level, but if the Wraith who’d escaped from their cruiser were heading for the facility, that could all change very quickly.

He glanced over at McKay and caught his eye. “Anything on the LSD?”

McKay dug into his vest and glanced down at the device. He shook his head. “Still nothing. I told you they aren’t working in here. Whoever built this facility, it wasn’t the Ancients—this place is not compatible with any of our Ancient tech, life-sign detector included.”

Evan nodded, not bothering to hide his disappointment. He’d already known the answer—had already asked McKay the same thing a half dozen times. He shook Ortiz’s shoulder again but the man remained unconscious. A glance to his right told him McKay was doing the same thing to Zelenka but with better results. The Czech scientist was starting to flail sluggishly. Next to him, Hwangpo sat up against the console and stared blankly at the wall. A strand of dark hair fell across her dirty, sweat-stained face. Evan crawled over to Muller and slipped her tags over her head. He let his fingers trail across her face to close her eyelids but had to turn away at the sensation of warm skin. If he didn’t look, he could almost believe she was still alive.

A broken cry echoed out across the room, and Evan stood quickly, raising his P90 again. He saw that Ronon had moved the table next to Sheppard even farther away, and he caught a glimpse finally of the colonel’s head and arms. He was flailing weakly, his face pinched tight in pain.

“John?”

Sheppard cried out again, causing Teyla to jerk her hand away from where she’d set it on his arm. Ronon leaned closer, a hand on Sheppard’s head as he whispered something. It felt like an intimate moment, one he shouldn’t have witnessed, and he turned away, focusing his attention on McKay and the two scientists. As he rounded the console, he saw Zelenka struggling to sit up.

He squatted down next to them, patting Hwangpo on the shoulder. She didn’t react at all. He waved a hand in front of her face and frowned when she didn’t so much as blink.

McKay shrugged in response then turned his attention to Zelenka. “Radek, you all there?” he snapped, his voice biting and cutting through the silence. He sounded pissed, like the dazed man was somehow behind all the chaos and destruction of the day, but Evan had been around McKay long enough to hear real concern in his voice.

Radek grunted, bringing a hand up to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. His glasses were gone, but they were easy to replace. Evan had the sudden urge to tell him so, to offer some kind of comfort, if not for the Czech’s sake then for Hwangpo’s, but they were still in a facility filled with Wraith.

The silence of the room belied the very real, continuing existence of danger. Evan had felt himself relax a little as he’d walked the room, the lack of gunfire a subliminal message—albeit a false one—that the action was over. He glanced over the console toward Teyla and Ronon and saw that they were easing a very pale Sheppard up to a sitting position. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ortiz begin to move, waking up from his own stunner blast.

Five dead, four alive. And one missing, presumed dead. He snapped his head back to Zelenka. “Where’s Travis?”

“Dead,” Zelenka answered back, his voice low and rough. “The Wraith—they caught Sergeant Travis as we were trying to retreat, then Leon—Doctor Purcell—just as we reached this room.”

“Major!” Teyla cried out before Evan could respond, and he felt cold plunge through his stomach again. He stood up, checking the safety on his weapon to make sure it was off. But of course it was off. He hadn’t changed the setting. The movement had been automatic. Instinctive. Sheppard was still sitting on the ground, leaning against Ronon with his head hanging forward. Teyla was standing, her eyes darting toward the door next to the dead Wraith.

“They are coming again,” she said, raising her own weapon to point at the open doorway. “We must move from this room quickly.”

The moment of silence was over. Evan’s imagined crime scene with all of its unanswered questions dissolved around him, replaced by a battle scene and the specter of another fight. He felt his instincts lock back into place, followed by a sense of calm.

 _Another cliché,_ he thought. _The calm before the storm._ And at that exact moment, itwas as true as the deafening roar of silence.

“You two get the colonel,” he ordered, stifling the thoughts running through his head. “McKay, help Hwangpo and Zelenka. I’ll get Ortiz. Let’s move.”

oooooooooooooooooo

Shadows jumped and danced against the plain, gray walls of the corridors as they ran. Evan had Ortiz hanging on his shoulder, the man still only semi-conscious but awake enough to stumble along, one foot in front of the other. The others staggered along behind them, their steps echoing through the hallways and mingling with heavy breathing and sudden gasps.

Evan risked a glance behind him and saw that Hwangpo and Zelenka were running, their gazes fixed straight ahead. McKay had a hand on each shoulder and he looked almost like a parent guiding two errant children, propelling them forward whether they wanted to move or not. McKay himself looked panicked, but this jaw was clenched tight. Only McKay could out-stubborn himself.

Ronon and Teyla brought up the rear, with Sheppard hanging unconscious between them. Evan could see that most of the colonel’s weight was on Ronon, giving Teyla the chance to spin around every few seconds to look behind them and ensure they weren’t being followed. In the blinking, flashing lights of the hallway, Evan saw a dark bruise bleeding under Sheppard’s scalp and into his forehead. The skin wasn’t broken, but even at a distance, he could see the knot swelling.

Ortiz grunted and tripped, and Evan turned back to the front. He tightened his grip on the sergeant and hefted him up, then picked up speed as they continued down the hall. They’d seen no sign of Wraith yet, but he could smell them in the damp breeze that wafted through the corridors. He didn’t need Teyla’s special senses to tell him they were surrounded.

As they approached a crossroad of hallways, he slowed down. He leaned against the wall and slid forward, peering around the corner quickly then pulling back again. His heart thudded in his chest. In the split second look, he’d seen two white heads bobbing toward them. Wraith drones.

He glanced back at the others and saw that Teyla had already shifted the rest of Colonel Sheppard’s weight to Ronon and was moving forward. Hwangpo was crying, the tears running down her cheeks, but thankfully she still hadn’t made a sound. McKay pushed her and Zelenka against the wall behind him and Ortiz, then pulled out his handgun. Ortiz shifted, finally standing on his own and letting Evan untangle himself from the disoriented soldier.

When Evan had been about six years old, he’d been terrified of his mother’s art studio, convinced the paintings came to life when he wasn’t looking at them. He’d sworn then—and he still wasn’t utterly convinced he’d had it wrong—that he could see the colors and shadows moving out of the corner of his eye.

This facility was the same way. Jerking and swinging with the colored lights and shifting shadows, coming to life behind him when he wasn’t looking. He felt the same ball of horror deep in his gut that he’d felt when he was six, and it twisted painfully up into his chest as he spun out into the corridor. He dropped to one knee, firing as he moved, and felt a repeating blast of air against the back of his head and neck as Teyla unleashed a hail of bullets above him.

The Wraith dropped quickly, but the sound of gunfire continued to rattle through his brain long after they’d released their triggers. Evan forced himself to breath slowly, in through his mouth, out through his nose. He’d refused to step foot into his mother’s studio for most of that summer, and that part of him reared up, paralyzing the muscles in his legs, convinced that if he turned away—if he did anything but stare straight at the Wraith—they’d sit up again. Come to life like the paintings in his mother’s room.

He shook his head with a frown and forced himself to turn away anyway, back toward the others. As he did so, he caught a movement in the corner of his eye. A flash of white. Training kicked in again, with no conscious thought on his part, and he’d fired his P90 at one of the Wraith who had managed to sit up only seconds after being shot down before he was consciously aware of spinning back toward them. Maybe he’d had it right as a six year old after all.

He paused, waiting. His breath came out in heaving gasps that echoed through the corridors and disappeared into the shadows. The Wraith stayed down this time, but he knew the sound of the fight would travel quickly, drawing any nearby Wraith immediately to their position. Without a word, and ignoring the six-year-old’s voice in his head screaming that the Wraith on the ground weren’t dead, Evan grabbed Ortiz’s arm and continued down the hall.

It had taken them fifteen minutes to reach Sheppard and the others, but that much time had already passed and they were only halfway back. Evan picked up the pace, his eyes focused on the next intersection ahead. They were still thirty feet away from it when the space filled with gray-white bodies. He dropped to the ground with a cry, but not before a stunner blast caught the barely conscious Ortiz in the chest. Static electricity danced up Evan’s arm and he lost his grip on the sergeant.

“Pull back!” he ordered, his voice floating over the burst of gunfire and stunner blasts. They were out in the open, in a cramped space with no room to maneuver or take cover. Whether the others heard him or not, it didn’t matter. Ronon was already back-peddling, dragging Sheppard along.

McKay yelped next to him, his gun flying out of his hand and banging into the wall. It went off as it hit the ground, and Evan saw one of the Wraith in front of them jerk and stumble as its kneecap was blown off. He grabbed Ortiz by the collar and ran back the way they’d come, Teyla and McKay close on his heels.

“This way,” Ronon yelled, taking a right at the intersection they’d just passed. They rounded the corner as another wave of stunner blasts pounded the walls and ceiling, and then McKay was next to him, grabbing Ortiz and helping Evan drag the man’s dead weight across the floor.

“You okay?” Evan huffed out.

“Can’t feel my arm,” McKay answered. He looked up and shoved whoever was in front of him. “Move it!”

Evan glanced up long enough to see Zelenka stumble but move faster, pulling Hwangpo along with him. Ronon was still dragging Sheppard, holding the colonel’s weight with one arm while he scanned the hallway in front of them with his blaster raised. Teyla was behind them all, backing up and holding her P90 ready to fire. Evan had no clue where they were going, and his grip on Ortiz prevented him from turning around to see which way Ronon was leading them. He followed blindly, keeping one eye on Zelenka and Hwangpo and one eye on Teyla.

Sweat was dripping down his face again. They couldn’t have been running for long, but the muscles in his legs and back were starting to cramp like he was halfway through a marathon. Ronon slowed down just enough to glance down another hallway, and then he was gone again, rounding the corner and pounding as fast he could with the extra weight hanging off his shoulders.

Evan lost track of the number of turns they made, but the smell got better. Less like rotting vegetables and more like stale old books. They were moving farther away from the Wraith, somehow. He was about to call out for a breather when the group in front of him suddenly stopped and he plowed into Hwangpo’s back.

“Sorry,” he mumbled at the woman’s soft cry, but he was relieved to hear her voice and hoped that she was finally coming out of herself a little.

“In here,” Ronon barked. He led the way into a narrow room and shoved Sheppard into one of the half dozen alcoves in the wall. They looked like cupboards that had been built into the walls, the cupboard doors ripped off long ago. They were just wide enough for one person to sit in, and high enough off the ground that sitting in it, Sheppard was at about eye-level with Evan.

Evan and McKay slid Ortiz across the room and propped him up in the corner, and then Evan dug into his neck and felt the steady beat under his fingertips. The man was out cold, hit by at least one more stunner blast before he’d quite recovered from the last one.

“How’s your arm?”

“Tingly,” McKay said, shaking the limb. “I don’t think it hit me directly.”

“That’s good. Teyla—”

“I sense the Wraith, but we have gained some distance on them for now,” she answered before he could actually ask his question. She was standing near the door of the room they’d entered, her weapon raised. She glanced over at him for a split second, and he nodded in response.

“Any idea how far we are from the exit?” Evan asked, turning to Ronon. The Satedan stood with one hand pinning Sheppard upright in the alcove, the other flipping his blaster around in the palm of his hand.

Ronon narrowed his eyes as he calculated the path they’d taken. “Farther than we were before we had to turn back.”

“We need another exit out of this place,” McKay said. He shook his hand again, then massaged his palm with the thumb of his other hand.

Evan tapped his radio. “Sergeant Feltner, do you copy?”

“ _Yes, sir. What’s your ETA?_ ”

“Not sure. We had to take a bit of a detour. What’s your status?”

“ _It’s getting a little thick down here, sir. The Wraith seemed to have figured out our exit strategy_.”

Evan grimaced. “How much longer can you hold the door?”

“ _We’ve got enough ammo for another ten minutes. Sure you couldn’t put off your little tea party until we all got back home, sir?”_

“Cute,” he grumbled. He heard the rattle of gunfire through the radio and sighed. “Hold as long as you can, Feltner, but if things get too dicey, you bail. We’ll look for a plan B in the meantime.”

“ _Will do, sir,_ ” came the strained reply, followed by more gunfire. The sound cut off abruptly as the Sergeant disconnected on his end.

“I’m going to look for another way out,” Ronon announced. He pulled his hand away from Sheppard’s chest, then paused, nodding once when the colonel didn’t fall out of the alcove. He looked around him, and Evan spotted another door at the far end of the room at the same time as Ronon strode toward it.

“Be careful,” he called out. Not that he had to remind Ronon of that, but he felt compelled to say it anyway. Ronon waved back without replying, and disappeared a few seconds later into another hallway.

“What about maps or something?” he asked no one in particular. Zelenka and Hwangpo were sitting on the ground next to Ortiz, and Zelenka had his arm around his Korean coworker, absently patting her arm. Teyla hadn’t moved, her gaze still fixed on the door they’d entered.

Evan looked over at McKay and saw the scientist had moved in front of his team leader and was searching for his pulse. Evan moved toward him. If there was a map, McKay would be the one to figure out how to access it.

“How is he?”

“Alive,” McKay snapped back, but his attention was focused on the colonel. “I’m not a doctor, but it looks like he hit his head pretty hard. Running around down here can’t be good for him.”

“We need to find another way out of here.”

“I heard you the first time. There are no maps of this place—that was the first thing we looked for when we arrived.”

Evan stifled a sigh. This was how McKay dealt with bad situations. It was better than Hwangpo’s state of paralyzed shock. “Any ideas?”

He didn’t answer right away, just turned his attention back to Sheppard. The colonel’s vest was unzipped, and McKay slid his hand under the shirt, pressing his fingers against Sheppard’s ribcage. “Teyla said he’d hurt his chest, maybe cracked some ribs.”

Evan winced in sympathy when Sheppard suddenly grunted, kicking out with his leg. McKay muttered an apology and pulled his hand away just as the colonel lifted his head for a second, his eyes fluttering open.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

His return to consciousness was brief. His eyes drifted closed again and his head slumped against the back wall of the alcove.

“He’s breathing okay, I think,” McKay said.

Evan nodded, even though McKay wasn’t looking at him. “He’ll be okay,” he said. “How’s your arm?”

“The feeling’s just about back. Unfortunately. It’s like when you’re out in the cold too long, and then when you come back in and your hands start to thaw out. It hurts.” He held his hands up side by side. “Are they the same size? They don’t feel like they’re the same size.”

Before Evan could respond, a voice cackled in his ear. Ronon.

“ _McKay, found a door._ ”

McKay and Evan both paused, but when Ronon didn’t continue, Evan caught McKay rolling his eyes. “And?”

“ _It’s shut. Can’t get it open_.”

“And I need to know about this because…”

“ _Get your ass down here and open it_.”

“He sounds just like Sheppard when he says that,” McKay whispered. He pushed the transmit button and ducked his head, speaking more directly into the radio. “There are Wraith wandering freely through this facility, and you want me to doddle down all on my own to open a door? Do you even know where the door will lead?”

“ _Got a good feeling about this door_.”

“Oh, that settles it then,” he snapped, the sarcasm thick in his voice. “I’ll be down there in a jiffy.”

“ _McKay_.” Even over the radio, Ronon’s voice carried enough of a threat to make the scientist stiffen.

“I will go with you,” Teyla cut in. “There are no Wraith coming from this direction at the moment.”

“Fine,” McKay huffed.

“I will help,” Zelenka spoke up, struggling to stand.

“No, doc. You stay here,” Evan said. “With Ortiz and Sheppard out of commission, I’ll need some help if the Wraith figure out where we’re holed up.”

He saw Zelenka blanch at that, but the small man nodded and slid back to the floor.

“We are on our way,” Teyla said to Ronon, and seconds later, Evan was left alone with two unconscious soldiers and two terrified scientists.

ooooooooooooooooooooo

The minutes crawled past. Evan had paced the length of the room too many times to count, the soft scrape of his boots against the floor the only audible sound. The half of the facility they were in had been carved into the side of a large hill, blocking out any heat from the day. The air was thick with moisture and he wondered if things sounded differently because of it.

Every few minutes, he’d approach the door they’d come into and listen for signs of pursuit. At one point, he’d thought he’d heard the tromping of boots echoing toward them, the faint stench of Wraith drifting in a few seconds later, but then the silence had returned.

He glanced at his watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed—it felt longer than that, but he was still hyped up on adrenaline and knew his perception of time was warped. He glanced over at Zelenka and saw the small man watching him as he turned and walked in the other direction, toward the door Ronon, Teyla and McKay had disappeared down.

“Did you guys figure out who built this place?” he asked. He’d spoken quietly, but his voice echoed throughout the room and he cringed.

Zelenka sat a little straighter, moving his hand to his face to shove his glasses up higher on his nose before remembering they’d been lost sometime during the fight with the Wraith. He sighed and dropped his hand into his lap. “We know it is definitely not the Ancients,” he answered. He too was whispering, and Evan winced again at how easily the sound carried. “Although there is some overlap in design. We think that maybe whoever built this place was contemporary with the Ancients. Friends, perhaps.”

“I wonder what the Wraith want with this place.” He’d muttered it, more to himself than to anyone else, but he heard the scientist clear his throat, and when he looked over at him, Zelenka blushed and turned away.

“Doc?”

Zelenka glanced at him, then away, then slowly turned back and held his gaze. “I cannot be sure, but…”

“But?”

“We were attempting to get some of the systems in this facility up and running, to see what this place was and who had built it. I think…I think perhaps we activated something that could have been detected by a passing Wraith cruiser.”

“You mean like a signal?”

“Yes. Well…maybe. We did not intentionally turn on any signals, of course, and I am not sure what the other teams were doing. My group had brought power only to a handful of consoles, but it was clear even from that that this facility wields great power. If the other teams were also bringing power to other areas of the facility…”

Evan sighed. It made sense, in a way. “The lights,” he said, his eyes darting to a wall sconce emitting a pale blue beam.

Zelenka tilted his head, nodding a moment later. “Yes, very possibly. It was the first thing we activated—that was when we realized this facility was much larger than we’d first thought. The power levels needed to light this entire complex, combined with the other things we were trying to slowly turn on…it could have been enough to attract the Wraith’s attention.”

“One mystery solved, one more to go.”

“What is the other?”

Evan smiled, but there was nothing funny about their situation. “How to get out of here alive.”

Zelenka opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a loud cry, and then feet banging against the wall. Evan spun around in time to see Sheppard flailing in the alcove, his feet kicking against the air as they searched for some purchase. He cried out again and hunched forward, and Evan jumped toward him as his body began to tilt away from the wall.

He caught him just in time, grabbing him by the shoulders and preventing a head first dive onto the floor. Sheppard flailed again and grabbed onto Evan’s arms, but Evan couldn’t tell if he was trying to push him away or hold onto him. He was easing Sheppard up to lean him against the back wall of the alcove when he heard a wet choking sound. He jerked his CO forward again and stepped to the side just as Sheppard threw up.

There was nothing he could do for the man. He kept a tight grip on one of his arms as nausea wracked through his body. The bout of sickness only lasted about a minute, but when he was done, Sheppard slumped forward and almost slid off the alcove and onto the floor again. Evan moved carefully back in front of him and pushed him slowly backward, cringing at the pale face slick with sweat.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

Sheppard slowly blinked his eyes open, and Evan could see the glazed look reflecting in the pale light. The bruise along his forehead was darker and more pronounced as well.

“Colonel?” he called out again, shaking his shoulder a little.

“Lorne?”

Evan huffed out a breath in relief. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s going on?” His voice was loud—too loud. Evan saw Zelenka flinch out of the corner of his eye. Sheppard frowned and started to squirm, his elbows banging against the sides of the alcove. “Get me out of here!” he yelled.

Evan jumped forward, grabbing his flailing limbs, but that only made Sheppard fight harder. He saw Zelenka stand and creep toward the door they’d entered, then peer out into the dark hall.

“Colonel! Colonel Sheppard!”

“Get off me!”

“Colonel, stand down! We’re in—”

Sheppard was disoriented and dizzy and not really looking at Evan as he spoke, so the fist that punched into Evan’s solar plexus took him completely by surprise. His breath whooshed out of him and he relaxed his hold on the colonel’s arms enough for Sheppard to break free from his grasp.

Before Evan could grab onto him again, Sheppard launched himself out of the alcove. He hit the ground with a grunt and rolled, curling up into a ball as soon as he stopped moving. Evan could hear him breathing heavily but he approached cautiously.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

His CO flinched, then moaned and tried to curl into himself. Evan kneeled down, far enough away to avoid a swing if the colonel lashed out at him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. Sheppard didn’t react, and Evan slid a little closer.

“Colonel Sheppard, are you alright?”

“Lorne?”

“Yes, sir. It’s okay—you’re safe,” he said. _For now,_ he added but didn’t say out loud. He glanced over at Zelenka standing near the door, half expecting a troop of Wraith to barge in. Zelenka shook his head, pressing his hand to his nose again to push at glasses he was no longer wearing. _A nervous tic,_ Evan decided. Zelenka glanced out the door and shook his head.

No Wraith, for now. Sheppard coughed and banged a fist into the ground.

“Where are you hurt, sir?”

When Sheppard didn’t respond, Evan leaned in close to his ear and repeated the question. The colonel picked a hand up and waved it above him, then dropped it to the ground without a word. Evan sighed.

“Sir, you’ve banged your head hard, and McKay thought you might have cracked some ribs. I need to know how badly you’re injured.” He pulled on Sheppard’s shoulder in an attempt to uncurl him enough to see his face, but Sheppard suddenly jerked under his grasp. He gagged and coughed, but there was little left in his stomach to throw up. Evan moved behind him and held onto Sheppard’s shoulder until the spasms stopped.

“Colonel?” he called out a few minutes later. Sheppard cringed and wrapped his arms around his chest. “Sir, I know you’re hurting, but I need to check you out.”

Whether Sheppard heard him or not, Evan couldn’t tell, but he managed to unroll his CO fairly easily. Sheppard flopped onto his back with a moan and tried to curl up again around the pain in his chest, but Evan pinned him to the floor. The colonel’s eyes were closed but he was still conscious. Spittle flew from his mouth between gritted teeth.

Evan moved as quickly as he could, pulling Sheppard’s arms down and peeling back the vest. If the ribs had been cracked before, he was worried they’d been broken in his pitch from the wall alcove, which could cause all kinds of damage. He tugged the shirt up, and in the dim blue light of the room could see the bruising on the right side of the colonel’s chest. Sheppard was still panting and Evan watched the ribcage for a moment until he was satisfied both sides were moving evenly.

“C-cold,” Sheppard moaned, pulling weakly on his shirt.

“Sorry, sir.”

He pulled the shirt back down, then zipped up the vest. It wouldn’t do much in the way of providing heat and he wished he had a jacket with him. Sheppard rolled onto his side, this time facing Evan, then immediately rolled again onto his back.

“Chest,” he mumbled. “Sick…”

“I know, sir. We’ll get you out of here.” He studied Sheppard’s face with a scowl. Moisture had broken out across the other man’s forehead, his skin pasty under the blue lights.

“Hurts…” He continued babbling, ignoring Evan’s attempts to soothe him. Evan grabbed his wrist and felt for the pulse, not liking the rapid beat he was feeling. _Shock,_ he thought. _Or effects of the head injury. If those ribs take another hit…_

A groan from across the room pulled him from his thoughts and he turned toward Ortiz. Zelenka was already moving toward him, and he squatted down just as Ortiz’s eyes began to open.

“Sergeant?”

Evan crawled over to them and grabbed the Sergeant by the arm, shaking him. Ortiz groaned again but drew a little closer to consciousness.

“Ortiz, wake up. That’s an order.” He kept the volume of his voice low but hoped the tone was commanding enough to draw the Marine out of his daze. When Ortiz stiffened in response, Evan smiled and shook his arm again.

“Sergeant, you with us again?”

“What?” His voice was a whispered rasp, and he blinked up in confusion at Evan’s face. “Where…”

“We’re still in the facility,” Evan answered. “You took a couple of stunner hits from the Wraith. How are you feeling?”

Ortiz sat up slowly and pushed himself against the wall until he was sitting up. He shook his head, then groaned and let his chin drop to his chest.

“Ortiz?”

“Sorry, sir,” Ortiz whispered. “Head’s spinning a little.”

“Take your time, Sergeant.”

“The colonel?” Zelenka asked, glancing over at Sheppard.

Evan crawled back toward his CO and saw that he’d stopped moving. For a brief agonizing second, he thought Sheppard had died on him, but then his gaze fixed on the jerking movement of Sheppard’s chest as he breathed. He was still alive, and once again unconscious. Evan dug into his vest and pulled out a small Maglite, then peeled back Sheppard’s eyelids. He felt his heart pound heavily in his chest when one of Sheppard’s pupils barely reacted. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew enough about head injuries to know the colonel needed medical attention—sooner rather than later.

“He’s out again,” Evan reported back to the others, schooling his voice into what he hoped was a calm tone. He glanced between Zelenka and Ortiz, who was still barely holding himself upright, then past them to Hwangpo, who hadn’t moved the entire time they’d been in the room. He pulled his handgun from its holster and walked back over to Zelenka.

“Take this, stand by the door. You see a Wraith, you shoot. Got it, doc?” He held his handgun out to the scientist and nodded when Zelenka took it with a shaky hand. “You don’t hesitate.”

“I…” Zelenka started, then stopped. He cleared his throat and held the gun with two hands. “I understand.”

Evan watched him slide over to the doorway and peer again into the dark hallway. He moved next to Ortiz’s side and grabbed one of the Sergeant’s hands. “Can you move at all?”

Ortiz tensed underneath him for a second then slumped back. “No, sir. Not yet.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Just pins and needles, sir.”

Evan nodded. He was about to stand up to check on Hwangpo when he flashed on the room where they’d found Sheppard and his group. The image of blood and death was locked in his brain, every detail exactly as he’d seen it in that first sweep of his eyes.  
“Sergeant, did you see what happened to the others? Briggs, Henley, Muller?”

Ortiz’s eyes widened, but he shook his head. “Are they okay? I didn’t…the Wraith were following us. We lost Sergeant Travis in the hallway and then we ducked into a big room. The colonel was yelling at me to get the scientists behind cover. I saw Doctor Zelenka go down, and then…” He took a shaky breath, curling his hands into fist. “I don’t know, sir. I heard you on the radio, and I heard a shout behind me. Then I think I got hit with a stunner. Next thing I remember is waking up here.”

“Okay, Sergeant. You relax for a minute, get your bearings back.”

By the time Sergeant Ortiz was able to move around on his own and handle a weapon, Evan had moved Hwangpo next to Sheppard and tasked Zelenka with looking over both of them. Sergeant Feltner called in to report they’d run out of ammo and were running outside for a jumper to pick them up. Evan knew that had been inevitable—they couldn’t hold the door forever against so many Wraith—but he still felt a twist of apprehension as their only known exit fell out of reach.

He checked his watch again and frowned when he saw nearly twenty minutes had passed since Rodney and Teyla had left to find Ronon. He tapped his radio, giving it two clicks and waiting for a response, and he tried not to count the seconds it took for Sheppard’s team to respond.

It couldn’t have been more than five or six seconds later, but it felt longer. Time and adrenaline were twisting around each other, and Evan closed his eyes against the throbbing pulse that was picking up in his temples. Teyla answered, her voice flooding with relief.

“ _Major Lorne, this is Teyla. We have gotten the door open. It leads up to a staircase to another level. Ronon went upstairs to check it out and spotted a window at the far end of the first hallway_.”

“That’s good to hear,” Evan said, slapping his hand against his thigh. “Ortiz, Zelenka, and Hwangpo are all mobile. We’ll start making our way to you.”

“ _Turn right after you leave the room and follow that hallway to the end. We will meet you there and make our way to the staircase together_.”

“Copy that.” He turned to the others. “Ortiz, you take point. Zelenka, stick with Hwanpo. I’ve got Sheppard. I’d say our little tea party is over.”

He walked over to Sheppard and hefted the man’s limp weight over his shoulders into a fireman’s carry, ignoring the confused glances Ortiz and Zelenka were shooting at him. Without another word, he pointed them toward far door and, hopefully, safety.

* * *

 **PART II**

 

Sheppard woke up again halfway to Teyla, Ronon, and McKay’s position, forcing Evan to stop and set him down. The colonel’s legs folded immediately, and the man let out a broken whimper that echoed too loudly. Evan saw the others had stopped ahead to wait for them, but he waved them forward.

“Go! We’re coming!” When Ortiz hesitated, Evan scowled and waved him on. “Sergeant Ortiz, get Doctors Zelenka and Hwangpo to safety.”

The Sergeant shot a glance at the colonel, then nodded reluctantly and took off down the hall, grabbing his charges by the arms and dragging them with him. Evan turned back to the colonel and saw that Sheppard had rolled away from him. He looked like he was trying to crawl away, except his eyes were closed and he wasn’t really moving all that much. Evan squatted down and grabbed his arm.

“Sir!” he called out as loudly as he dared.

Sheppard stilled, snapping his head around and finally looking at Evan. He had tensed, readying himself to fight, but he relaxed under Evan grasp.

“Lorne?”

“Sir, we have to keep moving.” He glanced down the hallway behind him but it was still empty. He pulled on Sheppard’s arm and managed to bring the other man up to a sitting position before the colonel jerked out of his hold with a cry. Evan reached for him again, ducking his head to meet Sheppard’s gaze.

His eyes were bright and unfocused, and Evan cringed. “Sir, can you stand? We have to move.”

Sheppard didn’t seem to hear or register anything being said to him, so Evan grabbed his arms again and tried to pull him up to his feet, hoping the colonel would get the general idea and help him. He did, kind of. His legs flailed beneath him, but somehow he managed to push himself up against the wall. He groaned again, ducking his head.

“Dizzy,” he said.

Evan tugged on his arm. “Sir, come on—”

“What?”

Sheppard was talking loudly, almost yelling at Evan like he couldn’t hear anything. Evan’s thoughts raced. He’d been relatively close to the grenade blast, and he’d taken a serious knock to the head. Either one of those—or both combined—could have affected his hearing. Or it could be something else entirely.

Evan was about to tell him to move again when he changed his mind. He tugged on Sheppard’s shoulder and pointed down the hall where Ortiz, Zelenka, and Hwangpo had disappeared. The colonel nodded, or started to, then froze with another groan and brought a hand up to his head.

They moved slowly, the pace wreaking havoc on Evan’s nerves. They were going too slowly. It would have been better if Sheppard had stayed unconscious, at least until they’d reached the stairwell. The colonel slid along the hallway, moving deliberately, one foot in front of the other. The only thing keeping him upright was his shoulder against the wall. Evan glanced behind him and saw no one in pursuit, then pushed Sheppard to move a little faster.

“My head hurts,” Sheppard suddenly announced at the top of his lungs. “I can’t see right.”

“Sir, you’ve really got to keep it down.”

“Damn it, Briggs,” the colonel continued, paying no attention to Evan.

Sheppard stopped and bent forward, pressing a hand to his chest. “Lorne?”

The question was softer, more pained. Evan ducked down so the colonel could see him. “Right here, sir.”

“Chest…hurts to breathe.”

“I know, sir. We’re almost out of here, but we have to get to the stairwell. Can you make it?”

He wasn’t sure if Sheppard could hear him or not, or if it was bright enough in the hallway for him to read Evan’s lips. Assuming he also knew how to do that. Half the lights in the hallway were out anyway, leaving pockets of deep shadows every few feet.

“Head’s ringing. Ears…Feels like I’m underwater…all muffled and plugged up,” Sheppard explained, and Evan cringed again at the volume level.

He brought a finger to his lips and glared, the universal signal to _shut the hell up_.

Sheppard frowned. “What?”

Evan shook his head and pushed him another foot forward.

“I don’t feel so good,” the colonel said, stopping abruptly a few seconds later.

“Sir, please,” Evan said, knowing that what he was saying was falling, literally, on deaf ears.

Sheppard kept one shoulder against the wall as he slowly slid forward and moved another ten feet, then another. Evan was just starting to think they were making good time when Sheppard stumbled in the shadows and almost slipped from his grasp. When he reached for him, he realized there was a decorative space in the wall about a foot deep. He imagined at one time that the space might have held a statue or a plant, but it was empty now. The colonel had slid along the wall without seeing the gap and fallen into it.

Evan grabbed him by the upper arm again and pulled him out, and Sheppard flailed in response, swinging a fist toward Evan’s face. It landed on his chin but was so weak it wouldn’t even leave a bruise.

“Get the hell off me!” Sheppard choked out. He pushed at Evan again and this time managed to break free from him. He stumbled a few feet down the hall before tripping and landing on his knees. Evan jumped forward, but not before Sheppard collapsed against the wall with a scream. He wrapped his arms around his chest and whimpered.

Evan was an oak tree. Solid. Unwavering. Dependable. That’s what he liked to think of himself in relation to his CO. He’d been in Sheppard’s shoes a few times and understood the stress and burden of being in charge of the entire military expedition on Atlantis, so the least he could do was make that burden as light as possible. That was the role he had decided on for himself. No matter what happened, no matter how strong a storm twisted around them, Evan Lorne would always be solid.

But it was an appearance, his self-proclaimed role. He acted the part well, but the emotions swirling around inside him didn’t always match the outward, easygoing manner he liked to portray. He knew that was probably true for most people on Atlantis, but he was second-in-command. He didn’t have the luxury of giving into it the way all save the top echelon of the city’s leaders could.

He felt himself wavering now, riding a crest of emotion. Sheppard was swinging at him again, refusing to let Evan touch him and yelling death threats at him. He knew his CO wasn’t really yelling at him, that he wasn’t really seeing Evan, but they were still in a hallway in a facility full of Wraith. They still had to move, and Sheppard’s only chance was the one person he seemed to think was out to get him.

“I’ll rip your throat out!” Sheppard screamed.

He’d straightened up using the wall for support, and he lunged at Evan. Evan, momentarily taken off guard, tried to jump out of the way, but he wasn’t moving fast enough. The colonel grabbed onto his vest and clung to him, a stream of threats and curses spilling unintelligibly from his mouth.

“ _Major Lorne, this is Teyla. Where are you?_ ”

He flinched as Teyla’s voice cut into Sheppard’s diatribe, but Sheppard was now going for his neck and it was all he could do to keep the other man’s wrists in a tight grip. He didn’t dare release one of them to go for his radio. Without thinking, he jerked Sheppard off balance and began dragging him down the hallway.

“ _Major? What is going on?_ ”

Sheppard’s voice had cut off mid-rant as he was pulled after Evan, and they moved another dozen feet before he finally gave up trying to get his feet under him and fell forward. He slipped through Evan’s grasp and hit the ground with cry that echoed up and down the hallway, then rolled toward the wall and curled up into a ball.

“Dammit!” Lorne hissed through clenched teeth. He tapped his radio to respond to Teyla’s frantic voice. “Sorry, Teyla. Sheppard regained consciousness and I’m having a hard time getting him to move. He hit his head pretty hard and he’s fighting me every step of the way.”

“ _I will come to you as soon as I get the others to the stairwell_ ,” she answered in a tone that invited no argument. She would come whether Evan told her to or not.

He sighed, acknowledging her decision, then approached his CO. Sheppard had stopped moving, and Evan had a fleeting hope that maybe he’d fallen unconscious again.

“Colonel Sheppard?” he whispered. He shook his head. _He can’t hear you, dumbass._

He reached a hand out and laid it tentatively on Sheppard’s shoulder. When Sheppard didn’t respond, he grabbed is arm and tried to pull him gently toward him. The colonel was suddenly all limp arms and legs and he uncurled easily with a soft moan.

“Hurts,” he whispered.

“I know, sir. I know you’re confused and in pain, but I’m going to get you out of here. Do you understand?”

“Lorne?”

The eyes were still glazed, still unfocused. Evan stifled a sigh and nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s me. We’re going to stand up now.”

Without waiting for a reply, he dug his hands under his CO’s arms and lifted him up as gently as he could. Sheppard coughed, clenched his teeth against a stifled cry, then coughed again.

“Hold on, sir.”

They started moving again, and Evan saw another space in the wall for plants or statues, or whatever this place’s former inhabitants had used for decorations. Sheppard had stopped fighting him, but with every step he took, he seemed less and less capable of holding his own weight.

“Stupid,” he suddenly called out. “Stupid idiot. What was he doing? He was…kid…he was just a kid. He shouldn’t have been here…needed more time…”

Evan tightened his grip, wishing he could somehow convey to his CO that he really needed to stop talking. He glanced over at him, and in the dim light saw a drop of blood in the cavity of his ear. _Shit._

“I told him…stay down, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t listen. Dammit, Briggs!” He yelled the last part of that out, and the sound reverberated through the hallway.

“ _Major Lorne, I am heading in your direction now_.”

Lorne leaned Sheppard against the wall and readjusted his grip, then reached for his radio. “Hurry,” he hissed. “We’re hardly moving. I think—”

He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, one he would have missed if he hadn’t turned to the side to prop Sheppard up. They were in an unlit section of the hallway, covered for the moment in shadows. Evan blinked, looking for the movement he’d barely caught. At the far end of the hall where they’d just come from, he saw the slow movement of a Wraith creeping down the hallway.

It hadn’t seen them yet, judging by the way it slid forward and searched every shadow, but it had certainly heard them—or more accurately, Sheppard. There was no way it couldn’t have been aware that they were somewhere ahead of it. Evan clicked on his radio and whispered. “There’s a Wraith coming.”

He heard two clicks in response, and he turned his head toward the other end of the hall. Their destination. Teyla would be running now, but Evan had no clue how long it would take her to reach them. Minutes maybe. Would that be enough time? So far, there was just the one Wraith. Evan turned back to look at it and saw its nose in the air, sniffing like a dog.

“Damn Wraith,” Sheppard announced, loudly. Evan’s eyes widened when the Wraith snapped its head in their direction.

“Briggs…his first mission. He wasn’t supposed to see a man sucked dry by one of those…pale-faced freaks.”

He was struggling against Evan’s grip again, growing more agitated at the memories playing through his mind. Evan wanted to know what had happened in that room—to him, and Briggs and the others—but not right now. He pressed a hand against Sheppard’s mouth and realized a second later that that was the wrong move.

“Get off me!” he screeched. “Bastard, I’ll kill you. Every last one of you.”

The Wraith was moving faster, drawing a weapon. Evan recognized the stunner handguns the more elite Wraith commanders tended to carry. The creature was still a good 100 feet away, but it had a bead on them and was moving quickly.

“Sorry, sir,” Evan whispered. He pulled Sheppard along the wall another few feet until he found one of the decorative spaces and shoved his CO into it. This one had a low shelf built into the bottom, and Sheppard stumbled backward and landed on it. Stunned, he snapped his jaw shut and just sat there.

Evan stepped away and reached for the P90 swinging from his vest. The Wraith had slipped into one of the pockets of shadows and disappeared from sight. Evan held his breath, his finger tightening on the trigger, as he waited for the creature to reappear. A second later, he saw movement—a lighter strip of black against the darkness—and he opened fired.

The P90 spit out a dozen bullets as Evan crossed to the other side of the hallway, and then it jammed up. The last shot echoed down the hall, followed by the tell-tale click. The trigger stiffened, refusing to yield to the pressure Evan was exerting on it. He heard a snarl from down the hallway and hoped that meant he’d at least nicked the beast.

“Briggs!” Sheppard screamed.

Evan slammed into the opposite wall and found his own decorative space to squeeze into. “Shut up,” he hissed, but Sheppard couldn’t hear him. He could just see the colonel sitting in the small indent in the wall.

“Briggs, stand down,” Sheppard continued. “Why didn’t you stand down? You were safe—you were behind cover. We had it. Henley was…We were ready…”

The Wraith was moving again, closing in on Sheppard’s position quickly. Evan dropped his gun and reached for his thigh holster.

“Briggs, you…he…he freaked out. He saw the Wraith feeding and he flipped. He stood up, offered to surrender himself if they’d just stop. I could see his face—he totally lost it. I didn’t want to shoot him. I don’t know…I don’t know how many more I can lose…”

Evan froze, snapping his attention to Sheppard, the advancing Wraith forgotten. He replayed the image in his head again and saw the bullet holes in the young sergeant’s vest.

“We had those bastards…we were safe…and then you jump up and…and Henley tried to stop him, and Briggs just swung around, shooting anything that was moving.”

Evan glanced down the hall and felt his heart flutter in panic. It was empty. The Wraith—where the hell had the Wraith gone? He looked back at his CO and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Sheppard was whispering now, lost in his memories.

“Briggs…shot Henley first but didn’t kill him. Muller caught him square in the back, but he didn’t go down. He just turned and shot her. He was turning to me when another Wraith waltzed in…I saw the grenade…Henley must have…Briggs…”

His voice had trailed off and Evan glanced again down the hall, searching for the Wraith.

“Bastards!” Sheppard screamed. “I’ll kill you! He was a kid—they were all…they shouldn’t have…”

A shadow moved in front of Evan from out of nowhere, and he saw the faint outline of the Wraith who had been moving toward them suddenly place itself between him and Sheppard. He raised his gun but hesitated. If he shot now, he risked catching Sheppard in the crossfire. Should he risk it? Should he wait until it made a move to feed, and then jump out, shooting?

“There you are,” Sheppard called out, the volume of his voice still loud. Evan heard the Wraith snarl in response. “I’ll kill you,” the colonel continued. “All of you.”

“I will savor your defiance,” the Wraith hissed back.

“You don’t even brush your teeth,” Sheppard responded. Evan moved at the same time, slipping out from the wall as quietly as possible and acutely aware of the soft swish of his clothes.

The Wraith raised its hand, but before Evan could shoot, he heard two shots ring out in time with the muzzle flashes. The Wraith staggered, dropping its feeding hand and staring down at its gut. It growled, then widened its stance and looked up at Sheppard again.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” the colonel muttered, and now Evan could hear the empty click as he continued to pull the trigger of the bullet-less gun. The Wraith straightened and flicked the weapon out of Sheppard’s hand with a slap. It snarled and raised its feeding hand.

Evan stepped forward, moving to the Wraith’s side, and raised his weapon until the muzzle was level with its head. The creature must have finally sensed him, but before it could react he pulled the trigger.

He didn’t actually see the shots. He fired too quickly for that to happen, and it was too dark in this section of the hallway, but he felt warm liquid hit his skin, and then the Wraith dropped to the ground like a rock. He fired again, just to be sure, the memory of Ronon unloading his blaster into the dead Wraith earlier still fresh in his mind. The smell of blood filled his nostril, curdling his stomach.

By the time he’d holstered his weapon, he was panting and gritting his teeth against the urge to gag. He dug out his little Maglight and flashed it at Sheppard’s face, seeing the same blood and brain matter splattered on his CO that he could feel on himself. Sheppard looked up at him in a daze.

“Lorne?”

Evan had no response. It was the same question Sheppard had been asking him all afternoon. He was reaching for his CO’s vest when the colonel suddenly jerked forward and threw up, and the sour stench of vomit mingled with that of dead Wraith. Evan swallowed back his own nausea and grabbed onto Sheppard’s shoulder just as the other man collapsed, finally unconscious again.

ooooooooooooooooooooo

Evan was an artist. He always had been. He had his mother to thank for that. It’s what they’d done on weekends when he was kid—every weekend—and he’d loved it. He was good at it too, according to not just his art teacher mother but all of his teachers throughout school. He’d always been able to see past the single captured moment on canvas to the movements, thoughts and emotions behind the snapshot picture—the intangibles in the brush strokes, lines, angles, colors and shadows.

But there was this other side to him. The soldier. He could stare at a blank canvas and a palette of colors and see an entire world, but he could also stare at an empty field or desert, a vacant patch of sky, and see a whole different kind of world. Movements, lines, angles, shadows—all driven by strategy and tactics, knowledge of weapons and bombs and the psychology of combat.

Creation and destruction. It had bothered him when he was younger, how he could be equally talented at both. He wasn’t just an artist; he wasn’t just a soldier. There was something contradictory in it, like one of those two sides should win out over the other. That he should be better at one of them so he would know who he was.

Teyla had found them just moments after Evan had hefted Sheppard’s dead weight over his shoulders. She’d scanned the hallway, her gaze lingering on the dead Wraith, but she hadn’t said anything. They’d jogged back down the hallways, twisting around corners until they’d eventually reached the stairwell, and then Ronon had been there, lifting Sheppard off of Evan’s shoulders and transferring him to his own.

Evan had felt the cool air of a fresh breeze as soon as he’d reached the top of the stairs, and he rounded the corner to see a broken window with a jumper hovering just outside, its back hatch open and beckoning. Within seconds, they’d climbed out of the window onto the ramp and into the jumper, then taken off into the sky. He’d heard himself yelling out questions, finding out that they were the last to escape the facility and that a Wraith Hive ship had just dropped out of hyperspace. He barely remembered giving orders to destroy the facility with all the Wraith still in it. He’d fallen back onto a bench when the ensuing explosion had rocked their small craft, and then the atmosphere had given way to stars and the deep blackness of space.

The Hive hadn’t lingered, and the jumpers had returned to Atlantis as soon as it was safe. Evan vaguely recalled someone wiping blood from his face with a wet cloth, and then he’d seen Sheppard loaded up onto a gurney and whisked at run toward the infirmary. He’d followed, moving slowly, and only belatedly realized that Zelenka and Hwangpo had shadowed him all the way.

They were all okay, those who’d escaped the facility. A handful of them had been seriously injured, including Colonel Sheppard. His team had hovered for two days before he’d regained consciousness again, but Evan had pulled the doctor to the side to find out what his condition was.

Severe concussion, perforated ear drum, two cracked ribs. Condensed like that, he didn’t sound as badly off as he had looked in the hallway just before he’d passed out for the last time.

Evan woke up early, four days later, and rubbed his hands together. The tips of his fingers were itching, literally itching. He rolled out of bed and slid into a fresh t-shirt and track pants, then gathered up his painting equipment. He wanted to paint. _Needed_ to.

Atlantis was the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. He’d stopped painting for awhile, but at the sight of all those gleaming, shiny towers, glistening in the sunshine against the blue ocean, the need to paint had slammed into him. He’d had no choice, and he remembered his mother describing the same sensation, the feeling of being compelled to express herself with her hands. Art had never been a question of want. It was a need—it was always a need.

And yet this beautiful city had been in more need than ever of Evan’s destructive abilities—his soldier side that knew how to kill, how to fight, how to inflict the most damage. Evan’s heart had pounded with the realization, late one night and admittedly after too many beers, that the city was himself, embodied. He’d never admit it to anyone—especially his mother—but he’d never felt so at home. The swirling confusion of contradictions within himself had quieted, solidified.

He set up his canvas on an eastern facing balcony, far from the inhabited areas, and started painting, losing himself in the colors and the brushstrokes. Thoughts drifted in and out of his mind but he held onto none of them for very long. Colonel Sheppard was recovering, Radek had made himself a new pair of glasses, Ortiz was in the shooting range every morning. Hwangpo had put in for a transfer on the next Daedalus trip out.

No one had been happy about the destruction of the facility, but no one had argued against Evan’s decision to destroy it. They’d learned just enough about it and its potential to know they could never let it fall into Wraith hands.

Memories of the dead Marines intruded, and he heard Sheppard’s voice recounting in his confused and jilted manner what had happened. Evan had looked Briggs’ service record up and saw he had been a fresh recruit. The babysitting mission to the mysterious facility had been his first one since arriving on Atlantis just a few weeks before. He’d barely served six months in the SGC as well, only half that time offworld, before being tapped for an Atlantis assignment. That was not enough time, Evan had decided, and he’d bring it up with the colonel when the man was back on his feet.

He stepped back with a frown and glared at the picture that had emerged on the canvas. It was dark and reminded him all too much of those last moments with the Wraith creeping up on them and almost feeding on Sheppard. Flecks of paint covered his arms and he rubbed at them in vain. Without thinking about it, he pulled the canvas off the easel and walked up to the edge of the balcony. The painting was too real, the emotions it portrayed too close to the surface. Evan didn’t want to see it and he cocked his arm back, prepared to fling it into the ocean.

The smell of paint swept over him, and he hesitated. It was stupid, really. They were on Atlantis, in another galaxy, and getting new, blank canvases for painting wasn’t easy. He dropped his arm and stared down at the dark images. This was a good canvas too—one of his expensive ones.

He set it back on the easel and looked down at his paints. Paint was easier to transport. It took less cargo hold space, so he had plenty of it. He glanced back at the canvas and nodded, his mind already drawing new lines through the sinister images. He looked up at the sky and let the empty blue envelop him, clear his mind. Beneath the paint smell, he could almost taste the salty air of the ocean.

He would paint over the dark memories that had flooded onto his canvas. They would always be there, hidden beneath the surface, but in the end, no one except himself would know. He tilted his head as he looked at it, seeing a new image overlaying the other one, seeing how he could use the darker colors already on the canvas to set a contrast, bring out the more startlingly beautiful aspects of the city’s landscape.

Evan dipped his brush in the paint and set back to work.

END


End file.
